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﻿This most recent Modern Pro Tour will go down as one of the most broken Pro Tours in Magic history. The various flavors of Eldrazi decks ran totally rampant, taking six of the Top 8 slots, as well as a large percentage of the decks with winning records, despite being only a very small portion of the field. Of the four people that played the UR Eldrazi Aggro deck, two of them made the Top 8, one of them went 9-1 in Constructed, and the other one (me, unfortunately) went 5-5, for a total record of 31-8-1. That’s an 80% win rate. At the Pro Tour. That’s completely absurd.

My Magic tournament results have been filled with good finishes that just fell short of letting me break through. I made Top 8 of Grand Prix Providence last June, but finished the year three Pro Points short of Silver. That Top 8 qualified me for Pro Tour Battle for Zendikar, where I 8–0ed Day 1 and 2–1ed the second draft, but didn’t win any more Standard matches, missing both the Top 8 and the Pro Tour invite.

Aside from minor scry/fetch decisions, I’m very happy with how I performed at the Grand Prix! This was my first Grand Prix Top 8 ever, and I’m very ecstatic that I learned from my mistake at Grand Prix Los Angeles.

Providence was the 14th Grand Prix I attended in the last year. It started with making the finals of GP Portland last August. With 5 Pro Points and an invite to the first Pro Tour of this season, I decided to make a dedicated effort to break into the professional Magic scene. I would attend as many Grand Prix as possible, hoping to reach the 20 Pro Points needed for Silver. After months flying around the country, I had been consistently making Day 2, but always falling a few rounds short making the Top 8.

If you spend time around a group of Magic players, you’ll inevitably hear that someone is fed up with Standard because of how stale the format is. Sets come and go, archetypes rise and fall, but that particular complaint about Standard is eternal. Today I’m going to tell you about a deck that is anything but stale; it attacks on a unique axis and plays in a way that even the most jaded grinder will find refreshing.

I’ve been a Sidisi loyalist from the day she was Standard legal, and the Sultai Brood has handsomely rewarded my dedication. Sidisi Whip has been my weapon of choice for the entire Khans Standard season, and my fellow zombie lovers have recently gotten a few new toys.

I love synergistic decks, so do take everything I’m about to tell you with a grain of Sliver. When I stole tenth at GP Oakland, I first-picked Blood Bairn (out of a middling pack). I believed the sacrifice synergies in M14 were so powerful, they outweighed the risks of playing cards that were weaker in isolation. It’s pretty hard to get enough sacrifice type effects in typical Sealed or Draft, but that’s where the 12 packs of Team Sealed come in. The RB sacrifice deck is back, and ready for some treasonous fun.

Earlier this year, we learned that Khans of Tarkir would feature three-color wedges, and that building around these wedges would be supported in Draft. Soon after the set came out, pioneers and visionaries among us discovered that the abundant mana fixing allowed us to construct decks that used four and even five colors! The question I’ll be asking in this article would sound silly in most other sets, but is relatively unexplored in this context — what if we only played two colors?

As if they could resist the sea. Drown your opponents’ ambitions under the crushing weight of the ocean. Devour everything they hold dear with wave-sluicing serpents and ship-swallowing krakens. Nothing in Commander gives as much delight as summoning briny behemoths to do your bidding, and your opponents will be relieved to see blue creatures in play that aren’t Consecrated Sphinx. Sea Monster Tribal is one of the weaker blue strategies, and that is your strength. Your foes will underestimate you. Surprise them with the riptide.